Linux cups server and printing with Kerberos tickets

To print from Linux to a budgetted printer you had to type your account password for every print job, which sometimes nearly impossible if the application was not started from a terminal window. Shortly there is a central CUPS-server on drukwerk.science.ru.nl which demands a valid Kerberos ticket, so you do not need to type your password for every print job. Managed Linux PCs running Fedora 8 and above already use this CUPS-server. A Kerberos ticket granting ticket can be obtained by typing kinit.

We will try to extend the CUPS-server in such a way it can be use for Windows IPP-printing.

Old pc's for sale to Science employees and students

In January, all 5 year old pc's in pc rooms and study landscape have been replaced by new ones. Departments of the Science Faculty have already had the opportunity to express their interest in these old pc's. C&CZ still has a few dozen left, which are now offered to individual employees and students of the Science Faculty, almost without any guarantee. When interested, contact C&CZ (Helpdesk, Theo Neuij/Mathieu Bouwens, 56666). Specifications: Dell Optiplex SX280; Pentium 4 dual core processor 2.8 GHz, 1 GB RAM, 80 GB hard disc, including (attached) 17" TFT-flatscreen, keyboard and mouse.

Web application for employee attendance

Within various service departments of the Faculty of Science, a web application for employee attendance (time registration) is used. This application is based on the open source system TimeTrex. Other departments that are interested in using the system for one or more employees, should contact C&CZ. Registration is done with passes or on the web. It can be helpful when using the flexible working time regulation of the Collective Labour Agreement (CAO). It is a somewhat flexible system, that e.g. can also be switched to automatically register attendance, which makes it into a (sick) leave registration system. There is no interface (yet) with the RU BASS-HRM registration of (sick) leave, which has to be updated at least quarterly.

Opening hours C&CZ changed

Saving time when making appointments (manage calendars)

If you spend a lot of time planning appointments, especially with stable and/or big lists of employees, please read on.

The last few weeks, the Faculty Office succesfully tested the Mozilla SunBird calendar software. At this moment, with this software one can view the free/busy information of a few dozen employees that are using Outlook, Google Calendar or a Science Faculty E-Groupware calendar.

If you are interested in using this calendar software, we would like to hear from you, with a list of persons with whom you most often make (group) appointments. These persons can change their calender settings themselves.

Radboud University intends to migrate in 2010 to a modern mail/agenda system for all employees and students. This system can be used with a nice webclient, but also with Outlook, Thunderbird etc. This should make planning appointments with RU employees really simple and efficient. If you can wait for this new system, you do not have to react of course.

Endnote X3 available

Endnote version X3 is available for MS-Windows and Macintosh. It can be installed on Windows from the install network disk. The CDs can also be borrowed by employees and students, for home use too. It has also been installed on the Windows-XP Managed PCs.

Office2007 and Learning Guide

Departments that would like to migrate from Microsoft Office XP to 2007 with their Windows managed pc's can send a request to C&CZ. To help users with this migration, Radboud University has bought a Learning Guide (in Dutch), that can be used from the campus network. The guide also contains information on Windows7.

BASS on Mac and Linux

The use of the BASS (Oracle) concern applications for HRM and financial
transactions is supported only on some Windows platforms.
However because BASS is essentially a Java application running from a
browser it should function just as well from other platforms such as Macs
and Linux systems. Indeed we were able to place an order
through BASS from a Linux (Fedora 11) system and we've heard that for
some people BASS also works from a Mac. For those who
are not afraid to experiment a little we have collected a few hints on
our BASS page which may help you to get things going.

Replacement of pc's in pc rooms

In the third week of January, in total 122 pc's in pc rooms TK149/TK153, Biology Lab TK329 and the study landscape will be replaced by new ones. The inconvenience for students will be minimal in this week. Departments can contact C&CZ (Theo Neuij, 56666) if they are interested in acquiring a number of these more than 5 year old pc's.

PCs in the Library of Science accessible by all RU students

As of December 23, 2009 all students of Radboud University can logon to the
PCs in the Library of Science in the Huygens building with their RU account
(s-number). Make sure to choose the RU logon domain at the logon screen.

Please Note:

Personal configuration settings are not preserved between sessions on these PCs.

Only the black-and-white printers in the vicinity of the library are automatically available. Other printers need to be configured manually for each session. For instructions please come to the library front desk.

FNWI students and staff can also logon with their science account (domain B-fac),
yet without their personal profile. However, the U-network drive with their
personal data is available. On PC's in the terminal rooms the personal profiles
are still available.

In January the PCs in the Studielandschap will be replaced by brand new
hardware. The new PCs will be accessible by all RU students.

New Comodo certificates with Windows Mobile 6.1 problem

The new Comodo certificates,
that were announced in May,
are gradually being used by RU-servers. The expectation that these certificates would be "popup free", has not been completely fulfilled:
users with a Windows Mobile 6.1 smartphone are advised to
check the presence of the Comodo SSL root certificate.
Without this root certificate, usage of the secure wireless network or secure RU-websites will become impossible.

Backup tape robots upgraded

C&CZ has upgraded its two 5 year old LTO2 (200 Gb/tape uncompressed) 8-Tape
Library units to two LTO4 (800 Gb/tape uncompressed) 24-Tape Library units.
We named them R2D2 and C3PO. This upgrade not only increases the
backup capacity by a factor of 12, which is necessary because more and more
data needs to be backupped. It also speeds
up the backup and restore times because the drives are faster and the manual
operational overhead is reduced.

In the near future we will be looking for a new destination for our old
but still trustworthy LTO2 units. If you are interested please mail to
postmaster at science.ru.nl.

Valid e-mail in Spam folder

On 7 december, during the regular update of the spamfilter, a new filter set turned out to tag too many valid messages as spam. Therefore some valid mail ended up in people's Spam folders, so-called false positives. Please search your Spam folder (a subfolder of Inbox) for false
positives. It is advisable to do so once a week even under normal circumstances if you do not want to miss any mail, but for December 7 and 8 there is a direct reason to do so.

Power outage in computer room

On December 13 2009 at 18:50 we suffered a power outage in our computer room *behind* the UPS, that is meant to shield the servers from problems with the electricity grid. The UVB investigates the cause of the problem. The outage caused the failure of several file servers, web servers (including squirrel), one of the LDAP servers, etc. All systems have been reconnected to a different power supply and at 10:20 all systems were started. In the next hour all services should become available again.

Linux print problem and change

The FSR reported a security problem with printing on Fedora Linux, that made it possible to print using the budget of a different user. As a temporary emergency solution, one has to supply a password when printing login server, like lilo and stitch, to a budgeted printer. See the print information to print from within an application that doesn't ask for a password. A final solution, the deployment of a central CUPS-server, couldn't be realized in a very short timeframe. Thanks to the FSR for reporting this problem.

Linux login servers: upgrade and addition

The operating system of the general purpose Linux login server lilo (formally porthos.science.ru.nl) has been upgraded to Fedora 11. Also a second Linux login server named stitch (formally lijfwacht.science.ru.nl) is now available. Lilo and stitch are identical as far as the software is concerned but stitch has newer, more powerful hardware (8 cores, 2.5 GHz each, 8GB internal memory). In case of a problem with one of these servers the other one serves as backup. These changes were initiated because of a security issue on lilo before the upgrade and agree with our goal to eliminate the old Solaris login servers solo and solost eventually. For more info, see the servers page.

BASS update locally managed pc and downtime

If one uses a locally managed pc, one should update BASS before November 9 to avoid problems. The C&CZ Managed Windows pc's are or will be updated by C&CZ. This update is necessary to use the new BASS servers. Because of this update, BASS cannot be used between Friday November 6, 12:00 hours and Monday November 9, 08:00 hours.

Internet domain name registration/relocation

C&CZ has recently obtained a partner account at domain name registrar QDC, allowing us to register a .nl, .com, .org or .eu domain name quickly and easily. The (technical) administration of such a domain name is controlled by C&CZ (the C&CZ Internet domain name servers). In this way Radboud University Nijmegen becomes the owner of the domain name instead of an individual employee of a department). Relocation of existing domain names to the registrar QDC is also possible, but will involve some additional paperwork, see the domain name registration page for additional details.

Student printer changes

Next to printer jansteen another HP4350 black-and-white laserprinter jansteen2 has been placed. This makes printing easier for students: if one of these printers has a problem, one can just pick the other one. Repairs of these printers can take a long time, because there is no support contract anymore for these printers. The HP4350 printers monet and chagall have been removed.

PC-rooms renewed and expanded

The more than five year old pc's in PC-rooms HG00.029 en HG02.702 have been replaced by new ones. At the same time the number of pc's has been increased by 27 to accommodate the larger number of students. Both rooms are dual-boot: every pc can be used with Microsoft Windows or with Fedora Linux. By waiting for the lower prices of the standard supplier, that were a result of the European tender of pc's, thousands of euro's could be saved. The plan is to replace the other about hundred pc's that were bought for the pc-rooms in 2004, at the time of the completion of the first phase of the Huygens building, at the end of 2009.

Redundant fiber uplinks

From today all network switches in the Huygens building and other buildings at Toernooiveld are linked to the FNWI router by a second, redundant fiber uplink. This router consists of two linked autonomous switches at different locations. As result of this a defective fiber link or failing router switch will not instantly effect the existing network connections. Obviously an improved availability of the network services.

New wiki extension AWC Forum available

Free RSI prevention software

The free RSI prevention software Workrave is available on all C&CZ managed Windows pc's. If Workrave doesn't start automatically, one can start it with Start -> Programs -> Workrave. When one doesn't want Workrave to start automatically, one can go to Start->Programs->Startup and delete Workrave there.

Fast info pc's, also for non-Science users

A few days ago a column with four pc's has been placed in the central street of the Huygens building, next to the Library of Science. Students asked for pc's to look up information fast, IHZ ordered the design of the piece of furniture, C&CZ placed the pc's. New is that also non-Science users can login with credentials from a different domain than Science, e.g. in the RU-domain with s-number and KISS-password for a student. U-number and RU-password for an employee doesn't work (yet). In order to login fast, no roaming profiles are loaded for a user. Specific Science software and printing is not possible (yet).

Software update: Maple 13

A new version (13) of Maple has been installed on Linux/Solaris. Early next week it will also be available on the Windows-XP Managed PCs. It can be installed on Windows from the install network disk, but the DVDs can also be borrowed by employees and students, for home use too.

Mathematica Player

Different Surfnet SSL-certificates

One can/could acquire free SSL-certificates of Cybertrust through Surfnet.
The contract period with Cybertrust ends 1-1-2010 and all certificates will become invalid 3 months later.
Starting from July new certicates can be acquired from Comodo. See
for more information. Advantages of comodo are wilcard certificates
and private certificates. More information will follow as soon as the service is available.

New version squirrel (webmail)

1234567890 seconds since The Epoch

Next Saturday February 14 at 00:31:30 local time the time counter
that is commonly used in the Unix world, i.e. the
number of seconds since January 1, 1970 UTC ('The Epoch'),
reaches the pleasing value of 1234567890. Perhaps even more
exciting is the fact that in the early morning of January 19,
2038 the counter reaches the maximum value that can be stored
in a 32 bit signed integer. Luckily there still is enough time
to find a solution for this daunting challenge compared to
which the Y2K problem was just a stroll in the park.

Again power failure server room HG04.070

Saturday Jan 31 around 03:00h the power supply fire protection unit in
the server room HG04.070 was activated again, which caused the immediate
and complete power down of all servers in that room. This time as well no sensor had detected
a temperature high enough to activate the protection unit.

There was no extra information available to determine a more definitive cause
for the immediate 'Emergency Stop' of the UPS unit.

To prevent a new faulty fire alarm event, only one (1) temporary, mechanical
temperature switch, can activate the UPS 'Emergency Stop'.

The complete fire alarm power switching unit with 4 temperature senors has been
disconnected from the UPS 'Emergency Stop'. This system is still working and
is still connected to and monitored by the building alarm system.

It has been discovered that every door entrance has a fire-key-switch, directly connected to the UPS 'Emergency Stop'.
These switches were not connected to the building alarm system. The switches are now disconnected from the
UPS 'Emergency Stop' and are now connected to and monitored by the building alarm system.

This setup ensures that:

there still is a working fire power protection unit, be it with a only one slow sensor at one place (near the hot spot).

a failure in the old circuit of the door switches will be detected, but cannot cause a UPS 'Emergency Stop'.

it will be clear when an UPS internal problem is the cause of an UPS 'Emergency Stop'.

Depending on future alarms, new information will come available to explain power failures and their causes.

It is agreed that the current situation will remain in place for at least two months unless an alarm occurs.

Computer lab usage available again

PC rooms upgraded

The last weeks almost all older PC rooms have had an upgrade. These PCs now have at least 1 GB of memory and a
better MS Windows (WDS) installation. Exceptions are the too old PCs in TK702 (TK-GIS, HG02.702) and the "self study rooms" (HG00.2xx).

Power failure server room HG04.070

January 20, around 10:45h, the power supply fire protection unit in
the server room HG04.070 was activated, which caused an immediate
and complete power down of all servers in that room.

Through bypassing the protection unit, power could be switched on again,
first partially and fully functional again about 12:00h.

Then the fixing hardware and software problems resulting from the immediate shutdown
could be started. This took several hours for some systems.
Work on the student file server lasted until the morning of January 21.

Around 18:00h the protection unit was activated again with a larger margin
for the room temperature.

Department contacts instead of first line contact (person)

The title "first line contact (person)" for contacts for C&CZ in the departments
of the Faculty of Science was often misinterpreted by people elsewhere because
the term "first line support" in general is associated with the ICT support groups.
Therefore on the C&CZ wiki the term "department contact"
is now used instead.

Firefox: new version with NoScript security

On all managed pc's the latest version of Firefox has been installed including
the NoScript plugin. NoScript initially forbids execution of all
scripts on a webpage. Per website one can decide to allow scripts temporarily or permanent. This is an
excellent tool to minimize the risks of using websites.

Tracelab: ordering and keeping track of chemicals

Due to ever more stringent rules for ordering and keeping track of chemicals, the intention is to only order chemicals through Tracelab from January 1, 2009 and therefore reject orders for chemicals that are directly entered into BASS Finlog. This holds for all units of the Faculty of Science (in the Research Tower as well) and for all users who are located in the buildings of the Faculty of Science (hence also the spin-offs).

Matlab new version (R2008b)

Starting December 2008 a new version (R2008b) of Matlab is available. The license server has already been upgraded. Very soon it will be available on all C&CZ managed PCs with Linux or Windows. For more information about this release, see
the Mathworks website

Surfnet Usenet News service alternative

McAfee license stops, F-Secure license starts

The RU ICT Overleg (RIO) decided that the RU transitions from McAfee to F-Secure for PC security before September 1, 2009. The F-Secure Client Security software has been placed on the install network disk. License codes can be requested from C&CZ.

Outgoing mail spamfiltered

As of today mail which is recognized by the Science spamfilter
as being spam is not sent to external mailservers anymore, but saved to a central quarantine folder. This change in the behaviour of the Science mailservers was necessary because those servers otherwise ended up in a blacklist. The forwarding of incoming mail thus gives a filtered mail feed from now on.

Ricoh copiers/printers

Because the Ricoh copiers/printers have been used for half a year now and soon a
new machine will be bought, C&CZ likes to hear wishes/problems from within the Faculty of Science. Please address these to the C&CZ helpdesk.

Phone Guide RU updated automatically

The interface between the Science phone guide and the RU Relation Management System (RBS) and through that with the phone guide is working now.
That means that the guides will automatically be updated when
the telefone contact person (usually the secretary) of a department within the Science Faculty
logs into and updates the Science Phone Guide website. In the Science Phone Guide one can also
enter information of labs, elevators, secretariats etc., only the data for a U-number will
end up in RBS. For more information see the Telephony page.

Network maintenance connection RU-UMCN September 22 18:00-22:00

September 22 between 18:00-22:00 hours the network connection between RU and UMCN St. Radboud will be upgraded to 1 Gigabit per second, which will cause problems withthat connection during that time period.

Reporting repairs/problems through the helpdesk website

Since a few months several employees and students use the C&CZ helpdesk website to request repairs and report other problems. One has to login on the website with the Science login name. Advantages are that if the machine is known, like with a Managed Workplace PC, one doesn't need to fill in serial numbers and that one can follow the actions for the repair through the website.

Causing trouble for colleagues by reacting to phishing mail (mail asking for password)

A week ago a too naive colleague reacted to a phishing mail by sending his loginname and password. Soon after that loginname was misused to send large amounts of spam through our webmail server, which lead to the appearance of one of our servers in a blacklist. That made it impossible for that server to send mail to some organisations. C&CZ likes to stress *again* that it is not very wise to believe something just because is written in a letter or e-mail and that *no official institution* will ever ask you for your password, just like a bank never will ask you for your pincode for your bank account.

H:-disk of students moved and enlarged

Because of the new computer lab TK023 with dual-boot Windows/Linux PC's, the H:-disks (home directories under Linux/Unix) of students have been moved to a new server. This made it also possible to enlarge the quota on that disk to 1 GB per student.

New computer lab TK023

A new computer lab TK023 (HG00.023) is available, with 41 modern PC's with big 24" screens with high resolution. For C&CZ this is a new type: the user can boot Windows-XP as well as Fedora Linux. Such a dual- or multi-boot PC is the standard for the future for the computer labs, with in the future almost certainly also Windows-Vista next to Windows-XP.

Opening hours C&CZ extended

Personnel changes at C&CZ

As of September 1, Kees Keijzers will mainly concern himself with leading the university project for the introduction of Syllabus Plus. Therefore he resigns as head of C&CZ, although he stays at C&CZ in the role of advisor. The new head of C&CZ is Peter van Campen. The vacancy within System Administration/Development is filled by Caspar Terheggen.

New version Endnote available

A CD of Endnote version X2 is available for MS-Windows, version X1 for Macintosh. It can be installed on Windows from the install network disk, but the CDs can also be borrowed by employees and students, for home use too. In a few weeks it will also be available on the Windows-XP Managed PCs.

Surfnet Usenet News service ended

Critical security flaw in Adobe Acrobat t/m versie 8.1.2

Adobe Acrobat has a critical security flaw, all users of version 8 are recommended to update to version "8.1.2 Security Update 1". Since the site-license for Adobe software has finally come through, this update can probably best be combined with the update to the Professional version.

Adobe Creative Suite on install-disc and can be lent

The DVD's of Adobe CS3 Design Premium UK and NL for MS-Windows and for UK Macintosh have been copied to the install network disc. Postmaster can provide serial numbers. The DVDs can also be borrowed at HG03.055. The other versions (Web) probably are less popular. May be used on campus by employees and students. Employees can purchase at Surfspot a DVD set for use at home. Home use by students is not covered by this license.

ChemBioOffice

Floris van Delft (department Organic Chemistry) made a description of the functionality of the software package ChemBioOffice. The package may be downloaded, free of charge, by everyone who has a science mail account (staff and students). Floris () is willing to answer questions about the usage of the package.

Software update: Maple 12

A new version (12) of Maple has been installed on Linux/Solaris. Early next week it will also be available on the Windows-XP Managed PCs. It can be installed on Windows from the install network disk, but the CDs can also be borrowed by employees and students, for home use too.

New version of the Windows Managed PC

There is a new installation method for the Windows-XP Managed PCs, that has been developed and is being maintained by several IT-support groups in the RU tohether, in the SITO (Samenwerkende IT-Ondersteuning) project. The main difference is that more software is installed, and that it is less dependent on network drives. Many PCs in the Study Landscape and several departmental PCs have been installed with the new method.

Matlab: TIMEOUTALL introduced, installation procedure changed

After an idea from FC Donders, C&CZ changed the options for the Matlab license server to include a 'TIMEOUTALL 3600'. This has the advantage that an inactive user can hold a license for Matlab or a toolbox for 1 hour at maximum, but could cause problems sometimes for the many tens of users within Radboud Unicversity and Hospital, because it can happen that a long-running Matlab job stops because there is currently no license available.

On Surfspot the site-license products of Adobe for home-use by employees are available for 35 euro per bundle. One can choose between the English or Dutch version of the 'web' or 'design' bundle. Both bundles contain a.o. Photoshop, Illustrator, Acrobat Professional, Dreamweaver. Only the 'design' bundle contains InDesign. The site license products for installation on campus have been urgently ordered.

Adobe software will become site-license after all!

Today SURFdiensten reported that the site license agreement between SURFdiensten and Adobe for Dutch schools and universities reached a final status. The products and codes for the licensed products are expected to become available next week.

New version of Mathematica (6.0.2.1)

MS Office for Mac 2008 NL/UK *campus* can be borrowed

A CD of MS Office 2008 for Macintosh can be borrowed for campus use and on Macs owned by departments, the NL- as well as the UK-version. For home use one can buy it relatively cheap at Surfspot, althoug it is always more expensive than the free OpenOffice.

Removing old mail addresses helps prevent spam

At this time (May 2008) we often see that suddenly a lot of spam is sent from different places on the Internet, with a (fake) sender address of the old "@sci.kun.nl" form. For the owner of such an address this gives some trouble, since the spam that cannot be delivered wiil come "back" to the sender address that was used. To help prevent this, it is a good idea to look in the DIY website which old "kun.nl" addresses can be removed and mail that to postmaster.